Here’s an overview picture of the area around the watersports center in Račice.

In the foreground you can see the river Elbe. In the top middle of the picture there is a funnily shaped mountain, the legendary mountain Říp:

According to a traditional legend, first recorded by the ancient Czech chronicler Cosmas of Prague in the early 12th century, Říp was the place where the first Slavs, led by Forefather Čech, settled. The land was named after the leader. In the 16th century, the legend was revived by Václav Hájek of Libočany who claimed that Čech was buried in the nearby village of Ctiněves and, later on, by Alois Jirásek in his Old Bohemian Legends from 1894.

On top of the hill there is a romanesquerotunda of Saint George, which is one of the oldest buildings in the Czech Republic. It is for the first time mentioned in 1126, when Soběslav I, Duke of Bohemia to commemorate his victorious Battle of Chlumec where he defeated Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III, have rotunda repaired and extended by the western circular tower. The present appearance of the rotunda is the result of a purist reconstruction from the 1870s. Inside the rotunda, there is a stone sculpture by the renowned contemporary Czech artist Stanislav Hanzík (1979) – The Good Shepherd, that symbolizes the arrival of Czech ancestors to the country and the beginning of the Czech history there.

Near the rotunda there is a tourist hut that was built in 1907 that still serves travellers today. In accordance with the patriotic spirit of the time, a wooden plate is mounted on the hut wall that says “What Mecca is to a Mohammedan, Říp is to a Czech” (Czech: “Co Mohamedu Mekka, to Čechu Říp”).

As you can see, the canal is in a turn of the river, quite a dead end, so there is nothing here except for the rowing center. Silence. The only thing you hear is the birds sing and the sounds of rowing: splashing and coaches shouting instructions. Our accomodation is spartan, but clean. No radio. No TV. So it’s just rowing, meals, and work … True living like a Monk. After breakfast I worked for two hours, then I went for my morning training, followed by work, lunch. Now I am writing this. In the afternoon I will go on a technique outing. Followed by dinner, then quiet reading … and bed time.

The training of this morning was 20×30″/60″ rest. Given the 2km length of the canal, there has to be a slightly longer break for turning the boat after every 6 or 7 intervals. Lubos and I decided to do 3x2km as 30″/60″ rest.

Again, side by side in singles. It’s really great. Again, Lubos was surprised that this Masters rower was able to keep up with him. I was doing 30-34spm and he was significantly higher.

Another CrewNerd/excel tool annoyance. I had programmed 30″/60″ intervals. Of course, at the end of the straight 2km, I had to press “stop” to allow for more time to turn the boat. It looks like the heart rate remains constant during that rest interval. Well, I can use a few hours in my rowing monastery to migrate to a python based environment to create nice tables. For now, here’s the plot from the Garmin:

So in the end we did 19 intervals. The last interval was a shorter one, because we were approaching the finish line. So we did “red buoys until finish line” which was about 20 seconds. I like this workout. The interval is 15 to 17 strokes, which is long enough to focus on technique. The rests are long enough to recover and keep the focus on technique, which for me, at these rates, is “light” touch, don’t force it in the water.

The sprinty stuff was followed by 4km of cooling down. Almost 13km in total. Three “swimming pools” plus a few extra meters rowing from lane 1 to lane 6 and back, and between the finish line and the docks.

At lunch I heard about the horrible stuff that happened in Brussels today. Metro station Maalbeek and the airport are places that I travel through numerous times per year. I do hope that none of the people I work with was on that metro or in that arrival hall. Here in Račice, the birds sing on in the silent woods.